Bungie Expects Upwards of 3 Million Players for Halo: Reach Beta

The Halo creators hope to make Reach the biggest multiplayer beta ever on consoles.

Bungie expects quite the turnout for the Halo: Reach public beta when it kicks off next month. Speaking with the Seattle Times, community director Brian Jarrard and multiplayer design lead Chris Carney discussed the goals of the beta, what's new for this Halo, and how they think more than 3 million players could show up for an early taste of Reach.

"My expectation is it could be upwards of 3 million people. I think that's a fairly conservative estimate," Jarrard told the Seattle Times. "Certainly there will never be a console beta of this magnitude."

While the Bungie guys admitted that the beta will mainly serve to stress test the game's multiplayer back end, they also wouldn't rule out a few last-minute tweaks as a result of public testing. "The Halo 3 beta is a great example of a particular weapon being in the game that immediately became very obvious that it was just way too powerful and didn't fit into the balanced, nuance of our sandbox, so the design team was able to react to that," explained Jarrard, continuing, "By the time the game shipped... it wasn't the 'weapon of the gods' that it was during the beta."

Keep an eye out for the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta starting Monday, May 3 -- assuming you still have your copy of Halo 3: ODST, that is. And be sure to check out our extensive preview of Halo: Reach for a primer on what to expect from Bungie's latest (and last?) Halo game.